So, a few months ago, my friend gave me a disc. He said it had the operating system known as Linux, and thus we could seperate ourselves from the horrid man, Bill Gates, and his Windows OS. I said yeah, sure, and discarded the disc. And it was in the back of my mind for a while.
Until I saw an article in Popular Science about the $100 laptop program. You know, the "One laptop for every kid in the world" program. I saw that they were considering a switch from Linux to Windows, and at first, I liked it - everyone knows Windows, and they'd get huge donations. But then, a key difference was pointed out - the fact that Linux was open-source, much like Mozilla Firefox, and can be modified easily.
And that is why I'm switching. But I'm having a problem. With so many versions, I don't know which oone to choose, which one has great windows software compatibility, and hardware compatability. And of course, the ease of modification by not-so-computer-savy people like myself.
Thank you very much, in advance.
Edit: found a site recommended by a user, http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
Does Linux officially endorse it?
How hard is it?
Is it useful

You should look at www.distrowatch.com. There are many many different distributions of linux, and while having so much choice is great, it can be a little overwhelming at first. Read some reviews. Download some live CD versions and take them for a test run. Figure out what you like. Linux is pretty compatible with most hardware, but there are definitely some things that are unsupported out there. You can usually find out doing a quick google search for any particular piece of hardware. There are lots of help forums out there for any specific issues.
As far as being able to run windows programs, linux won't run any of them natively. But you can run some windows apps and games using software like WINE (free) or Cedega (costs money). There are open source alternatives for pretty much everything you would want to do, however, and I would look to those before trying to run windows programs. http://whdb.com/2008/the-top-50-proprietary-programs-that-drive-you-crazy-and-their-open-source-alternatives/
Distributions I would recommend trying: Linux Mint (which is what I run), Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, openSUSE, MEPIS.

To add to Reed's advice I would recommend getting your feet wet by trying out some liveCDs first. There's a great list here: http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php
Remember LiveCd are most times slower then their installed counterparts but it's a really good way to find a distro that will suit your needs.

What if Bill Gates had a nickle for every time a Windows computer crashes... OH WAIT, he does!!!

linuxfromscratch is a great idea, obviously if you want to create your own light weight linux distro.
However you need to know a fair bit about using linux before you even think about starting it.
Like the other guys said, their all a little different, it depends solely which you prefere.
Kind Regards

I second Reed on Mint. I've been using linux for a while, but it's the easiest out-of-the-box experience I've come across. The community is active, and it's based on Ubuntu so you'll have lots of useful info on the forums there too. The best thing to do, though, is try several and see which you like best. PCLinuxOS is another great one to try. Best of luck!